Another Blow to Team O: Former Gitmo Detainee Cleared of All but One Charge in U.S. Embassy Bombings

Here’s the latest blow to Team Obama…
Terrorist Ahmed Ghailani was cleared today in all but one charge in 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed over 200 innocents.Just so you know… Ghailani confessed to delivering the explosives in the case. But, the judge pretty much threw out the government’s case.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani was found not guilty on all but one charge Wednesday by a civilian jury in New York, in a case with ramifications for President Obama’s policy toward Guantanamo and civilian trials for terror suspects.

Ghailani was acquitted in federal court on more than 280 charges in connection with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, including one murder count for each of the 224 people killed. He was found guilty for only one charge, conspiracy to destroy government buildings.

Ghailani faces a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a possible life sentence. He will remain in custody and sentencing will take place on Jan. 25, 2011.

The acquittal is seen as a major blow to the U.S. government, as Ghailani was the first former Gitmo detainee to be tried in a civilian courtroom. The case had been viewed as a possible test case for President Barack Obama administration’s aim of putting other terror detainees — including self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — on trial on U.S. soil.

This was the guy whom Obama and Holder lined up as their test case to prove that, yes indeed, we can convict Gitmo jihadis using good old-fashioned civilian court procedures. All was well until last month, when the district court judge barred the feds’ blockbuster witness from testifying, even though he was prepared to tell the jury that he sold Ghailani the explosives used to destroy the U.S. embassy in Tanzania in 1998. The feds had only learned of the witness’s identity during enhanced interrogation of Ghailani, and since the interrogation was deemed illegal, evidence derived from it was inadmissible. Without that testimony, the case collapsed. And now, a month later, we have a full-blown fiasco on our hands.

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